Aerial view of repair at the Mantoloking Bridge where the ocean cut an inlet to the bay durng Sandy in Mantaloking Thursday November 29. / Staff photo Tanya Breen

Written by

Kirk Moore

@KirkMooreAPP

MANTOLOKING — Borough officials are calling on oceanfront property owners to sign construction easements to their land by Dec. 25, so their battered and bandaged community can be first in line for an Army Corps of Engineers beach replenishment.

“It’s going to be first come, first served. We want to be at the top of the list,” Chris Nelson, special counsel to the mayor and Borough Council, said late Wednesday afternoon, as residents packed a meeting room at the Brick branch of the Ocean County library.

Refusal of many property owners to sign easements, which grant permission to the Army corps to build and maintain new 22-foot high dunes in front of their homes, was a major factor in delaying the $200 million beach replenishment project for northern Ocean County, authorized in 2007.

After superstorm Sandy ravaged the town, the Army corps plugged up a major new inlet and two smaller wash-overs, and left after building an 8-foot high protective berm.

“They’re not as high as the dunes were before, but they’re a good start,” Nelson said.

Devastation of the upper Barnegat peninsula has all levels of New Jersey government moving to push for the beach replenishment. Mayor George C. Nebel was adamant the time for complaining about the easements is past.

“It’s incumbent on everyone to sign it,” Nebel insisted Wednesday, adding he tried for a long time to have easements re-worded to residents’ satisfaction.

Nelson said work is ongoing to restore utilities and Route 35, which the administration of Gov. Chris Christie wants to have open to traffic by Christmas.